june 29

Can you believe its been 2 weeks allready? Yesterday in Ica, I visited the meseo regional de Ica, which had great explaintions in english about Paracas civilization. But, my favorite was bio/ anthropology room. They had really mummies and explainations of the diseases the natives died from. The evidence was great besides malaria many people died from a parasite bone disease that would literally eat the bone away. Also, the skulls of the cone head people were there. And, thats not forget, the explaination of head surgery operation to relive pressure on the brain these surgeries were 45 to 50 percent successful. I've had some touble finding fast internet access, but ever since Ica its been okay. I arrived in Arequipa today. It was a twelve hour bus ride. I´ve had really bad experiences with busses and last night was the same. I sat in the very back where the window was leaking in cold air; the sound and temperature made it difficult to sleep. I used T shirt as a hat and my backpack as a blancket to keep my legs warm. You can tell that it is very high in altitude here as breathing can be difficult. The are having a fesitval for St. Pablo and St. Pedro today this made it difficult to nogoitate the crowds to the laundry mat. I am going to chivay tommorrow for some mountaineering, hopefully.

hope all is well... thanks for emailing back,

Pete